well that person has their priorities messed up. Nothing can be worse than the death of your mother, unless you didn't like your mother........ Which case why would you use that as a comparison?

Which is why you shouldn't judge people who work in retail by the fact that they work in retail sometimes shit happens.

I know a guy that works for my company that used to make 6 figures and was working for world bank, back before 911. After 911, he had a break down and now works in retail.

@Skankingmike: that was exactly my reaction after reading that line. worse than the death of your mother? really?

@captain_underpants: also, has minimum wage really gone up to $10/hour? i was under the impression it was around 7 bucks.

@captain_underpants: depends, many states have their own min. wage established which are higher than the federal min wage. CA's min wage is $8, even though federal is $6.55

On no, I have to answer the phone to survive? This is worse than when my mother died!

Drama queen much?

You would be surprised at how many people who work in restaurants have college degrees. I think sometimes being out of the game and not quite knowing how to jump in/back in keeps people locked in place.

@defectiveburger: ah, i see. that makes sense, considering how the cost of living varies by region.

That is a problem with a degree in underwater basket weaving. I am planning to work two jobs when I finish college. I plan to take the money from the 2nd job for a down payment for a house and pay the house off early. If the government did not bail these companies out the share holders might vote these idiots out of their positions.

@Skankingmike: Honestly, it's hard to say without first meeting his mother.

@Skankingmike:

One shouldn't judge people by the job they hold, period! To think less of someone because of what they do for a living, mearly makes one even less of a person than those whom they are judging.

Having a better paying, or more prestigeious job, doesn't make one a better person.

In other words, I totally agreewith what your saying.

But will he labeled a bragger for life and have a hard time getting any other jobs? People some times that feel a about low wage jobs and you get stuck in them.

@captain_underpants: Well, to be fair, the death of one's mother could be expected (the death of everyone is inevitable, furthermore if she was diagnosed with some terminal illness) while your falling from the top of your career is far beyond someone's thoughts, especially when things are going well at the time.

People who are the in the best position fail to see the approaching doom.

@Raiders757: Jesus people, stop and think a minute before you pile on against the woman.

It really depends on how her mother died. If her mother had a long protracted illness or decline then she may have been expecting the death of her mother. It is often easier to deal with emotionally painful events when we see them coming at us.

She isn't necessarily saying her mother's death was not extremely painful. It could just be that she was much better prepared for her mother's death.

@Skankingmike: I agree. My first thought was her life hadn't been all that hard then if this was the worst thing that happened to her.

@ct_price: I have a number of friends in restaurants/bars who are very stuck b/c they've gotten so used to having the quick cash of tips. Not that the overall money is more really but the day to day availability makes it more attractive when you are younger and you can get stuck.

@TEW: That's a good option even if not ideal in the short term. The more you can payoff on a house/mortgage sooner, the better. It's mind boggling from my perspective doing Home Mortgage CS, just how much interest is saved by adding $10 a month, $100 a month, or more and sustaining that.

This guy is obviously not trying or is simply unqualified for the position he once held. I know of call center companies (in his immediate area) that are hiring all the time. The catch? You have to be good at what you do.

This sounds like a monumental fail yes- but not the economy.

Of course Sprint call centers have always been stellar examples of efficiency and customer service- so he is good. NOT. If he ran 7k employees in cust service centers for Sprint he must suck.

@Skankingmike: Not necessarily agreeing with her sentiment, but a death is a one-time event that might not even affect her day-to-day life all that much beyond the initial feeling of emptiness. Contrast that to losing a high-paying, respected job and spending every day waking up early and spending your entire days, weeks, months, and possibly years working at a low-paying, humble job.

I think everyone should work for minimum wage for at least five years before they go on to higher-paying positions. No more of this holier-than-thou class separation and sense of entitlement because daddy paid for their education/corporate placement.

I think back at the years when I worked the service desk at a supermarket below a federal court and high-falutin' office tower and the possibility that this reversal of fortune might hit Canada puts a horrible smirk on my face.

@ct_price:If 40 is the new 30 college is the new votech. Give it 5 more years and it will be the new highschool. A college degree has been so watered down due to the competition for the bucks and the lowered standards it is pitifull. Any one who does not plan on getting a masters or doctorate degree better be something when they finish that bach. IE: Nurse. EE. Teacher, etc. The days of doing something with a bach of sci or liberal arts degree are long gone.

Daaaamn, I wish minimum wage was $10 here. In the last 2 years NH has gotten a HUGE jump- up to $7.50 or something. It was $5 something 2 years ago. I would love to have something paying $10. But yes, it does suck for them to go down so low. My mom's in the same situation ever since the .com bubble burst, though I don't think she pulled in 6 figs, finding anything that pays double digits an hour is impossible.

@unobservant: I couldn't agree more. I work retail by choice, no kidding, only because it is far less stress than my last job. I work in a wealthy area of town and people treat me like I am some slack jaw idiot. I can only imagine how pathetic their lives must be, thinking that it is OK to treat others this way.

@wardawg: it's not the actual events itself which make it bad. it's the mental transition from a job you held in high esteem to something far far below her previous station in life. this is where empathy comes into play. her life isn't bad but it's not where she envisioned it. she's finally hit the reality that a lot of people live in but a lot of people have existed in that reality for a while. she's just always floated above it. give her a bit. she'll either adjust or kill herself.

@frodolives35: In some places, it already is. Where I work, it's hard to get a salaried position without a college degree. It's purely a CYA measure, though, because what you have a degree in doesn't much matter.

I don't feel any more sorry for these people at all. Don't commodify your life and you don't have this problem of tying your identity to your job and your salary. You don't need to keep this story in mind when you are talking to customer service rep, because whether or not they were executives six months ago is irrelevant. They are people and should be treated with the respect people deserve until they do or say something undeserving. I balk at focusing on these "mighty have fallen" stories. They demonstrate that we as a society think that executives are deserving of their jobs and salaries somehow more than the minimum wage worker who also lost her job. Screw them; welcome to having it actually tough. For everyone one of you deciding which private school to send your kids to, there are five people deciding how to feed their kids three meal on Wednesday. There is so much more to say but I don't want to bore everyone with too long a comment.

@qxrt: You can change your life, you can't bring somebody that birthed you and raised you back.

@Charlotte Rae's Web: Exactly, apparently life's been peaches and cream up until now.

@stopNgoBeau: Even if death is expected it's never easy. Nor is it comparable to living and working a honest job that you can eventually move on from.

Seriously was I suppose to feel bad for somebody who lost their job and now has a lower paying one?

Maybe now some of these Senior management people will understand how the other half lives.

"Meet John Eller. Five years ago, he was a Sprint executive earning $150,000 for managing 7,000 employees at 13 call centers. Today, he's a grocery store baker making $10 an hour."

This says a lot about the skills and experience he brings to the table from his years at Sprint. $150K at Sprint = $10/hr on the open market. Sounds right to me.

@Skankingmike: Oh my God, you have to do what we do every day for a living? You poor, poor bastard!

Twits.

@deadspork: Obviously not directed at skankingmike.

What a whiner, a job some people seeme to forget is a means to an end. The end being bills, sounds like the type of person that lives to work instead of working to live.

@cecilsaxon: Most people who run call centres don't even answer their own phones, let alone the angry buzzing of a hundred upset clients each day...

... and after working with the very people he used to think below him he learned that, under those stockboy caps and cashier smocks, there beat a collective heart more generous and giving than any he had encountered in the stark glass towers he from which he once ruled.

He learned to get along with his fellow paeon, became a more frugal person and, when the recession cleared and his fortunes were restored, he hired those hard-working, intelligent individuals to work alongside him and they all lived happily ever after.

@captain_underpants: However, no state has a minimum wage of $10. Highest is Washington at $8.55. The New York Times simply referred to the change as "hourly wage"; the Consumerist glitched a bit when they reported the story.

However, he's not a baker today, according to the NYT; he's got a salary of $34k. Which isn't going to go all that far, though, since he's got eight kids.

@soundreasoning: It's not just "how the mighty have fallen," though. It's people who spend a lot of time investing themselves into a particular career and, often, living with less to benefit from it in the future, who now find themselves worse off because of it. Eller has eight kids. He's not struggling just because he thinks of himself as a guy with a Porsche.

Why are all of these people "grasshoppers" while the "ants" store food for winter? Look up and read the fable if you're not familiar.

My friends of 15+ years and I started out at entry level and worked our way up. Two groups emerged... ants and grasshoppers.

The grasshoppers showed up with a new TV/car/mobilephone/etc after every raise. The ants kept their cars after they were paid off... stuff like that. It has hit the fan three times (early '90s, dotcom bubble, current crisis) in my working history and, thankfully, this ant has not yet been hit hard.

Everything is on a cycle. I weathered the early '90s recession as an green 18yo $10/hr high-school vocationally-trained CAD drafter. I did my job very well and constantly did more outside my job. I even installed and wired fluorescent lighting in the office and took my boss's car to Costco for new tires on his 7-series BMW. His car had more errant driving damage than my car was worth. That was my start, so I didn't "settle" for that job.

It saddens/surprises me to think that my $10/hr entry-level rate from that recession rivals the pay of people scrambling for any job to pay the bills in 2009.

I'm thankful that my current job situation is the best I have ever had. Rather than bask in the sunshine, I'm trying to finish up an AS degree before the end of 2010.

@unobservant:

And how I wish that was true.

I've been out of work for a year already.
I've exhausted U.E. and pretty much applied everywhere, from the local T-Mobile store to the supermarket down the road.

It's utterly depressing to say the least (ie..not getting a call back or even a interview).

I would feel worse for the person who has been in the low-paying job all their life than the one who was once an executive. At least with a six figure income, one (very likely) had a chance to take nice vacations, had a huge house at one time, expensive vehicle, etc. With a lifelong low paying job, one likely has *never* had the enjoyment of those nice things.

@floraposte: I realize the dual nature of the disappointment, but part of that disappointment comes from thinking yourself as special because you are an executive. That's why I said people should not commodify their JOBS and salary. Thinking of your job as your identity is a commidifying your work. If you are person who like customer service for example, you should be happy serving customers as a baker. But he isn't, he commdofied his success as represented by his "important" position.

And having eight kids is just his porsche. No one made him have eight kids its what he chose to send his money on, except its arguably less responsible because if you have a porsche and something happens it gets sold or repossessed, but if you have eight kids those kids get screwed. I'm tired of this excuse crap. Bad things happen everyday, they can happen to you and its totally fair for them to happen to you. Never act like everything is going to continue to get,better or stay the same, because they can also get worse. Life sucks, get a helmet, and a contingency plan.

@cecilsaxon: that's a pathetic comment, give the guy and these people some slack.. life sometimes deals you stuff that you weren't necessarily prepared for and you take it from there. I commend these people for going back to work, any work..

@nevets68: it hasn't been a year for me, just a bit over 4 months, but I ended up taking a branch manager's job for a rental agency.. comp is about 60-70% of what I earned before (all in, including a company car)..

I am still having challenges dealing with it, as I SO used to tie my ego and opinion of myself to my job (that is almost gone now), I start tomorrow and will show up with a great big smile on my face and appreciation in my heart for the opportunity that it provides to me.

@soundreasoning: What "excuse"? For that matter, what commodification? He's saying it's tough to have less money. I don't think that's classist or ridiculous; it is. The kids aren't screwed because there's eight of them (and by your logic, they're not screwed at all unless they too commodified their family's status), they're screwed because they're part of a family that's suffered a radical financial crunch. There's no number of kids that you can safely assume you're able to support in the event of loss of income, and there's no contingency plan that's going to save you against everything that life can throw at you. And it's also not reasonable to live off dry rice cooked over a candle for your whole life just in case you have to rebuild after a tsunami.

Some of the people who've lost higher positions or wealth are complaining in ways I find unappetizing, it's true. But not all of them are, and even those that are complaining still have justification even if they don't have likeability. And I don't see any reason to consider this guy unsympathetic just because he used to make more money than mey.

@JollyJumjuck: I don't get why it's a contest. Can't we feel sorry for anybody having a tough time?

"It has been like peeling back the layers of a bad onion," said Ame Arlt. "With every layer you peel back, you discover something else about yourself."

Uhm... she realizes she's talking about *herself*, right? Is she saying she's rotten to the core?

After nearly a decade of working for and observing some very poor managers and the deleterious effects they could have on the people beneath them, I learned probably the most important "Life-Lesson" regarding gainful employment, and it's this;

Your job- it's not who you are, it's only what you do.

People who come to define themselves by their role in the workplace cannot adequately deal with separation from it, whereas a well-balanced person will simply accept that if they need to take two jobs bagging groceries to make ends meet, then by golly they'll do that.

Sure, the ego always takes a hit, but that's the crux of it; if you're in control of that fucker, he can't make you lay in bed all day crying about how unfair it is that you're not pushing other folks around for your daily bread.

@Skankingmike: I was actually thinking that I can't believe it could be worse than going through a divorce, unless you didn't really love your spouse. I mean, we all expect our parents to die someday, right? I don't expect to ever get divorced, and I can't imagine the emotional, social, and financial impact it would have. But I guess there are some people who remarry 2-3 times throughout their life, so I guess some people do expect to get divorced.

@floraposte: Yeah, I was gonna say, I live where the minimum wage is highest and it sure isn't 10 bucks an hour

@wagnerism: I didn't bother to look up the fable but something tells me it'd be similar to Disney's "A Bug's Life".

Also, if nothing else your story gives my minimum-wage, college-student ass a little hope for the future.

I also work in retail by choice. I have a masters degree but I much prefer my retail job to working in the corporate world. I may make much less money but everyday I enjoy what I do. It's not what I studied in college but I get satisfaction. And I manage to survive in NYC because I scrimped and saved to buy a place and be responsible for my own bills. I don't feel sorry for people who made a bunch of money and then lose their jobs and can't pay their bills. Reduce your lifestyle, you should have been saving all along. I have over a years worth of living expenses saved if I do lose my job and so should everyone else.

I bet he's humbled.